AWS Outage – Lessons in Digital Dependency
When Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a major outage, it wasn’t just a brief inconvenience—it exposed how dependent our digital world has become on a handful of cloud providers. From e-commerce and banking to communication tools, gaming platforms, and smart homes, the disruption highlighted the fragility of modern infrastructure and the need for true resilience.
In this episode of Security for All, host Kim Hakim explores what really happened during the AWS outage and what it means for organizations, consumers, and cybersecurity professionals.
Kim welcomes Tahjar Roamartinez, MBA, CISSP, ITIL, CEH—former U.S. Army officer and cybersecurity executive with extensive experience in IT governance, risk management, and cloud security. Together, they examine both the technical root causes and the broader business and societal impacts of the outage.
Discussion Topics Include:
- The technical breakdown of the AWS outage and how a DNS failure rippled across industries
- How overreliance on a single cloud provider creates systemic risk
- The importance of redundancy, resilience, and multi-cloud strategies
- How to prepare and respond using playbooks, tabletop exercises, and recovery planning
- The growing digital dependency of individuals, families, and organizations
- How security leaders can balance innovation with risk management
- Lessons learned for CISOs, IT leaders, and business owners moving forward
Tahjar and Kim also discuss how this event should serve as a wake-up call for every organization, regardless of size or budget. From small businesses to large enterprises, no one is immune from the ripple effects of an outage in today’s interconnected digital ecosystem.
Listeners will gain practical insights into strengthening cyber resilience, building awareness, and preparing for future disruptions—because in cybersecurity, it’s not a question of if, but when.